Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko

Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko was born in the village of Okopy on September 14th, 1947 - the feast of Holy Cross. He was baptized in the family parish church in Suchowola under the name of Alfons (as a seminarian in the fifth year he changed the name into Jerzy). His mother, still in a blessed state, offered him up as a servant God. In 1954, he started elementary school and then continued his education in the local high school. As a school student he was an altar boy at the parish church. As his mother recalls, he would get up at 5am every day, irrespective of the weather, to perform his duties of an acolyte during Holy Mass. The decision to choose priesthood was made after the final exam in high school. In 1965 he entered the Archdiocesan Seminary in Warsaw.

After a year of study, he was drafted into the army and inducted into a special unit created to destroy priestly vocations among young people. Two years in the army had adversely affected his health. Later it even interfered with his priestly ministry. He was ordained at the hands of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski on May 28th, 1972. From 1972 through 1979 he was a curate in several parishes. Father Jerzy had an extraordinary gift of entering into good relations with people.

Mounting health problems seriously affected his ministry. When in January 1979 he fainted at the altar and spent the following month in hospital, Cardinal Wyszynski transferred him to the chaplaincy at the student Church of St. Anne in Warsaw, and then to St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish. There he continued his ministry and assisted in the parish as a resident.

In February of 1982 he started celebrating Mass on the last Sunday of every month for freedom of Poland. As months passed, more and more people came from near and far to participate in the Mass. The communist leaders at that time were not pleased with the actions of Fr. Jerzy and the respect he was enjoying from people all over Poland. More and more often things happened that were meant to scare Fr. Jerzy and force him to resign from ministry. His home was bombed and his car was doused with paint. In December 1983 he was arrested. He was facing a possible 10 years in prison. From January to June 1984, he was interrogated 13 times.

On October 19th, along with his driver he travelled to Bydgoszcz. At 6:00pm on that day, he celebrated Rosary Devotions and Holy Mass in Polish Saints Martyred Brothers Church. On their return trip at about 10:00 pm he was abducted in a place called Przysiek near Torun by three members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was brutally beaten, he was tied up in a way that any movement caused the noose to tighten around his neck, and then he was locked in the trunk of a car. A boulder weighing about 24 pounds was tied to his legs, and he was thrown into a tributary of the Vistula River near Wloclawek.

His body was finally found on October 30th. His body was buried on the grounds of the St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in Warsaw. Hundreds of thousands of faithful people from all over Poland participated in the funeral. Since interment, the grave of the Martyr has been visited by more than 18 million people from all over the world. Father Jerzy Popieluszko was beatified on June 6th, 2010 in Warsaw’s Pilsudski Square. His mother, Marianna Popieluszko, who had reached 100 years of age a few days earlier, was present at the event.